October 17, 2007: While religion is a major factor in the Afghan unrest, the biggest cause of violence is money, or the lack of it. The booming heroin trade is doing more to keep the violence going, than anything else. This is the poorest country in Asia, and one of the most heavily armed. The Taliban arose in the 1990s to halt a civil war over money. The Taliban believed religion was more important. But that didn't last long, and the Taliban fell within two months of the U.S. attacking in 2001, with smart bombs and suitcases full of hundred dollar bills. Now it's the drug lords hauling around the fat stacks of hundreds. This cash enables the Taliban to hire gunmen (at several times what police and soldiers get paid). These lads try to protect poppy fields, and the labs where the poppies are refined into opium and heroin. The money also pays for the Taliban and al Qaeda suicide bomber teams. Technically, the Taliban are fighting for political power, but they cannot ignore what their paymasters want.

The Taliban also have their own sources of income, mainly from extortion and kidnapping. The Taliban group that got $10 million for 21 Korean hostages recently, is now a local legend. The leaders of that group are openly boasting of all the weapons they are buying to fight the British and American troops. Most of the money, however, is going into appliances, housing, vehicles and communications equipment. Satellite phones are expensive, and every Afghan wants one.

Most Afghans want a better life, and the battle with the Taliban comes in second. For example, Canada had to shut down a training program for Afghan officers, because too many of the students, sent to Canada for English language training, quit and applied for asylum instead. For many Afghans, their country is worth leaving, more than it is worth dying for.

The Taliban are faced with the same dilemma as al Qaeda in Iraq. Unable to stand up to foreign, or even Afghan, troops, more effort is put into suicide bombings. There were only 17 of these in 2005, but that rose to 123 last year. For the first eight months of 2007, there were 103 suicide bombings, which killed over 200. The major Taliban problem is that 80 percent of the victims are civilians. That increases general dislike of al Qaeda and the Taliban. But these two organizations don't care, because they goal is to establish (or re-establish) a religious dictatorship. Afghan's don't want that either. But mainly they don't want the suicide bombings. A recent example saw a bomber detonate his vest in his home, killing his mother and several siblings. The bomber had just returned from Pakistan, where time in a religious school had convinced him that suicide bombing (and a payoff to his family) was the way to go. His mother and siblings disagreed, an argument ensued and, for reasons unclear (the neighbors could hear but not see the argument), the bomb went off. There is another neighborhood going against the Taliban. In a separate incident. another bomber had second thoughts, and approached police to surrender. But his vest went off was he tried to take it off.

An increasing number of Afghans are turning on the Taliban, even if they agree with the Islamic conservative approach to life. This means more tips about who is Taliban or al Qaeda, or where weapons are hidden. This trend is encouraged by the wider use of cash rewards. This approach works better the more the Taliban anger Afghans with indiscriminate terror tactics.

But ultimately, control of Afghanistan goes to those with the most money. In ages past this was the tribes with the access to the most valuable resources. A thousand years ago, it was the trade route from China to Europe, that passed through. Today it's the heroin trade. Whoever controls that, or eliminates it, will control Afghanistan.

KABUL (AFP) - The top US general in Afghanistan said Thursday he estimated that Afghanistan's rampant opium poppy cultivation was funding up to 40 percent of the Taliban-led insurgency.

General Dan McNeill, head of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), added he had been told by an international expert that this figure was likely low and could reach up to 60 percent.

"It is my best subjective estimate that the insurgency enjoys fiscal resources from the cultivation of poppy probably to the level of 20 to 40 percent of its total fiscal resources," the general told journalists.

The cultivation of opium -- 93 percent of whose world supply comes from Afghanistan, according to the United Nations -- is undermining everything the government and its international allies were trying to do, he said.

Despite internationally backed efforts to cut the drugs trade, Afghanistan's opium production grew by 34 percent this year, according to a UN survey.

There has been pressure on ISAF to be more involved in eradication.

McNeill said this was not the mandate of the 40,000-strong force from 38 nations. "ISAF is neither manned, trained or equipped to be an eradication force but there are other ways ... that we might be able to help," he said.

ISAF officials have already said the force is ready to help by providing training to Afghan security forces, and sharing information and logistics.

Besides funding insurgents, poppy cultivation is corrupting the government and distracting locals from the work under way to rebuild the war-shattered nation, McNeill said.

"People are distracted from the value of the reconstruction because of poppy cultivation and the money inherent within," he said.

In its last year in power in 2001 the extremist Taliban government slashed the production of opium -- the main ingredient of heroin -- to 185 tonnes a year.

It is now estimated at 8,200 tonnes a year, much of it going to Europe, with production the highest in the south where the Taliban's insurgency is the fiercest.